Our day at BYU

Today we went to a fun day on BYU campus. We initially went just to go to the Museum of Art (MOA) to an activity they hold each year to get kids interested in art. This year they were focusing on the Renaissance Period and everything was themed around that time. But, BYU also has a fun summer treasure hunt going on through all four of their museums, AND there was a new letterbox placed yesterday in one of the museums... So, we decided to make a day of today and spend all day on campus doing all three things!

We started out looking for the letterbox. We had already found two other ones from this same guy and they were pretty easy, but this one was a kicker! We actually never found it today! The clues looked something like this:
BYU
MPC
M-F

9-3

lXl
l l

l <<<<

l l

l l
POTS

What in the world does that mean? We figured out that it was at the BYU Museum of Peoples and Cultures (MPC) and they were opened Monday through Friday from 9-3. Easy enough, but the rest was tricky! I though maybe it was like walking directions -you start on a sidewalk and walk until you hit a door, once in you turn left and take 4 steps until you hit another wall, and so on. But when we got to the pots area of the museum, there was no letterbox anywhere to be found. Later on when we were turning in our Treasure map (activity #3) we saw that they had cameras in every room and thought that if they saw him place the box yesterday, they would have probably gone and removed it after he left. We e-mailed him and asked him to check and see if it was still there and then let him know about the cameras, so we will see what happens. I love letterboxing, but it is so sad when we attempt a box and can not find it!

From there we went to the MOA and went into the kids fair part of it. It was great fun for the kids. There was face painting, story telling, art rubbing, water colors, castle building with wooden blocks, and dancing. The kids got to learn a Medival dance and danced all around the room. It took Owen about 3 minutes of watching Tig and Garrett before he would try, but once he got comfortable, he was all smiles! The kids loved the storytelling - bard style. And Owen wanted to stay and waterpaint a million pictures! There were also small snacks, which were highly appreciated as well! Everything was around a Medival theme, so the face painting was dragons, princesses, swords and sheilds and such. Owen, of course, got an orange dragon - because yellow and orange are his "fabe-owit" colors, and Garrett got a green dragon. Teagan asked for a flower, but the lady chose to give her a flower and a lady bug to amtch her shirt, and Tig was okay with that! Then the water painting was of the Lady of the Lake or Lancelot or knights. It is was pretty fun, and is going on tomorrow also. There were a good number of people there, but not so many that I felt overwhelmed and crowded. We stayed there a couple of hours doing most of the activities. I think the kids could have stayed there longer, but I was hungry and done, so I vetoed their votes!

We had started our treasure hunt and answered a couple of questions for it at the Cultures Museum, like which indians used Katchina dolls, and what tribe kept Macaws as trained pets. And then we answered the questions for the Art Museum about two of the art pieces there, so since we were already half way through the treasure hunt, we decided to finish the rest of the hunt and we headed to the Monte L. Bean Museum of Life Science (it's a bunch of stuffed animals from around the world - really neat ones, too! They have a full grown Liger!)

Before we went in we sat on the lawn and had our picnic to the beat of cranes and heavy machinery that were tearing down some buildings. The kids all thought it was fun watching them, and when the big jack hammer thingy was going it made the whole ground shake and you could feel it! After a fun (yet windy and chilly) lunch we headed inside to answer which animals are the rulers of Africa, and what is North America's most rare mammal. The last one was a little trickier to find - but we found it and headed over to our last stop. Whenever the jackhammer thingy was going it made the tall grass around the lions exhibit shake and Owen loved that it made the lion look like he was really alive and moving in the grass!

At the Earth Science Museum (it has rocks, and dinosaurs, and such) we had to find the state dinosaur of Utah, and where the dinosaur named after N. Elden Tanner was found. The kids love this museum also because there are full size dinosaur bones you walk under, and there are all sorts of hands on exhibits you can touch and feel. It is a sort of small museum, but my kids never seem to get tired of going to it, and it is free (like all the other BYU museums), so that makes it wonderful in my book!

Having finished our treasure hunt, and having been on campus for 5 hours, we were ready to turn our treasure maps in and claim our booty. They gave the kids a handful of tootsie rolls and a cross bones sticker and then entered us into their end of summer give-away - whatever that is! So we aren't a great deal richer after finding the treasure, but our minds are, so I guess that was the whole purpose of the hunt! I had been wanting to go to the Cultures Museum but didn't know where it was, so I was thrilled that there was a letterbox there and that we got to spend some time looking though it. I am sure we gave the office people some questions as to why we were looking in the ficus trees and under the box seats, but that's okay, they didn't kick us out and maybe they were laughing the whole time because they had been the ones who had seen him place it yesterday and removed it. "Those silly people are looking for that Tupperware box we took away...keep looking, it's not there anymore!"

My mind is full, my spirit is happy, and my body is exhausted. I love those full days where you flop into bed knowing you have made some nice memories with your kids and you are now so tired that you quickly slide into a deep and rejuvenating sleep. It's off to bed with me now, pillow, here I come!